This evening, a federal judge granted a preliminary, nationwide injunction to prevent the implementation of an update to the Fair Labor Standards Act overtime rule. This rule change would have increased the pay of postdoctoral scholars. After a lengthy review process, the Department of Labor released its final version of the FLSA overtime rule in […]

By Helena Lucente In May, the U.S. Department of Labor announced revisions to the overtime rule provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act making an employee earning less than $47,476 on Dec. 1 eligible for overtime pay. This rule change includes postdoctoral scholars, potentially putting a financial burden on labs, departments and universities. Despite the […]

Today, the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives released its fiscal 2017 spending proposal. The National Institutes of Health, which is funded by the Labor-H subcommittee, would receive a $1.25 billion, or nearly 4 percent, increase in FY17. Alzheimer’s research, the BRAIN initiative and the Precision […]

Earlier this month, the Department of Labor released a revision to the Fair Labor Standards Act rule concerning overtime pay. The revision raised the salary threshold by which workers are eligible for overtime pay to $47,476. The DOL made it clear that postdoctoral scholars would be eligible for overtime pay under this rule. Here is […]

(1) The training model thus far is that of the medieval apprentice- a trainee is to become a clone of his/her supervisor. (2) Trainees are rarely permitted to conduct work not expressly assigned/approved by supervisor. (3) Training goals for postdocs at a national level are unspecified. (4) All postdocs are trained as if they will become academic research professors.